In a futuristic room sat Kaal on a chair, with his arms on the armrest. The scene looked as serene and grand at the same time. There was a calm expression on his complexion, his posture so steady that it seemed even armageddon would not be able to move him.
I opened my eyes slowly and continued to sit quietly.
Currently I had broken the 7th shackle of structure from my body and soul, though it did not feel much different. It felt like some limiters have been broken from my perfect body. I continued breaking my shackles.
After 2 years
In the same room, on the same chair sat Kaal who even though was there but his existence emanated the feeling of disconnectedness from his surroundings.
I have finally broken the 9th and 10th shackles from my existence. The 9th and 10th shackle of space and time were so tightly connected to each other that they were inseperable from each other; I had to start breaking them at the same time.
After breaking 9th and 10th shackles, I felt weirdly disconnected to the macrocosm. I felt some flowing illusory existence passing through me without affecting me in the slightest. I sensed weird black spots everywhere in my surroundings appearing and disappearing so quickly that I would not even have senesed them if they were not so ubiquitous. I sensed danger from them so I decided to study them after breaking all of my shackles. And so I continued...
After 4 years
I finally broke free from my 11th shackle. Except some increment in the aspects of my perfect body, I also sensed that I was nearly immortal now, it feels like some concepts of my supreme soul have become free, mainly eternity. Only the last shackle left now. Feeling excited, I continued...
After 1 year
In the same room, same chair sat Kaal. But this time something was not the same.
Startled, I stood up from the chair. It felt like waking up from a long dream. The sudden realization of the reality hit me with a feeling of loneliness and..... happiness?
After breaking the 12th shackle of I, I felt enlightened, unlike the enlightment when I just died, I felt fully awake now, not stuck in a quagmire of my own creation.
I tried to appreciate the scenery outside my room but my psyche and the world became incongruous. While I was feeling myself, the outside world looked dreary enough to become the worst nightmare of the mankind.
Everyone, in every single stronghold was following an absolute routine.
Tower supervisors immersed in their own cultivation, civilians doing work monotonously, it was difficult to even guess if they were conscious or not. They looked like corpses. The outside world's tranquility looked even more dismal and dangerous that it seemed the earth itself will devour the being who sets foot on those lands.
I quickly commanded Antya to access the central control system of all the strongholds and extract all the necessary information.
'Antya, convey all the necessary info that needs to be known to be known.'
'Yes sir, the stronghold here are established to mine the cores of the planet that are spread all around the planet effeciently. The planets and stars and other heavenly bodies here appear to be stationary with some strange phenomena on them; such as this planet. This planet seemed to have birthed it's collective will but the planetary core which housed the will was shattered into several pieces by a devastating weapon used by the current tower supervisors. One of the large piece was then used by them to birth human-like beings native to this planet but with absolute loyalty to them. The natives then instilled with the information that the tower supervisors were their protectors from the dangers outside the stronghold. They were led to believe that there were dungeons all around the world where the tower supervisors were tested. If the tower supervisors passed through all the tests, the world would be safe and flourish like it used to in the ancient era.
Because the humans were made from a piece of core of the planet and remnant the collective will in the remaining cores, their strong belief led the planet into really creating those dungeons for the tower supervisors with the prize being the pieces of the core. The remnants pieces of cores could not be directly taken by them because if they did so, there was a chance that the remnant will, will destroy the planet taking them along with it to the void. And because of their long lifespans, they could afford to implement this plan. And also it was found that heavenly bodies are generally classified to 10 ranks here and with this planet being the lowest possible rank planet.'
After hearing that I was stunned for a long while, partially because of this information. Breaking out of my stupor, I decisively ordered Antya to upgrade the detector and find a suitable planet or star for me preferably a higher ranked one.
Even then I could not help feeling uneasy as if my end was near. I could not relax so I entered meditation and activated my seer ability which was overpowered because of my absurd spiritual powers, to find the solution to my problem. I did not directly divine the cause of my problem because if there is a strange existence behind it, I will be successful in bringing my doom faster.
Quickly enough I divined an answer which was 'shackles'. Feeling puzzled, I thought,'Haven't I already broken my shackles?'
Maybe there are more shackles? It seemed I could not dircetly sense them with my soul. I guess I have to use my seer ability to find it or them?